Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary 8th Edition for Android

Oxford University Press -- the folks behind that big book full of words and defintions -- have just put out an android version of the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 8th edition. It's geared toward those who are learing Englishi -- and let's face it, a goodly number of 'mericans might be able to take advantage of it, too.

It's got full-sentence pronunciations, more than 1,300 illustrations to explain words -- and more than 184,000 individual words, phrases and meanings.

Hands-on with the Onkyo Android app

So I rearranged my living room over the past weekend and decided to retire my (gasp) 9-year-old receiver. Wasn't looking to spend a fortune, but surround sound is a must, Internet access is a plus. Ended up going with The Wirecutter's recommendation of the Onkyo TX-NR509. It's got a rear Ethernet port (if that's how you roll), or an optional Wifi dongle that plugs into the front USB port -- and an added bonus -- a companion Android application.

Let's really start off by saying that home audio is a pretty personal and finicky thing, and your setup will determine the usefulness of features. I've got an Xbox 360 and a Logitech Revue to handle most of my multimedia functions, so there's a good bit of what's the in Onkyo app -- specifically the music playback -- that I'll never use. You've pretty much got full remote capability, including switching inputs and sources. The app's layout's pretty intuitive, as are the settings. I'm not going to walk you through them as, again, your setup will vary from mine, and chances are you're a proper nerd and can do it yourself.

(I'll mention that the Onkyo has things like Internet radio and DLNA streaming, which is nice, but the on-screen UIs are so horrid that you'll likely not want to touch them.)

No, the one shining feature of the Onkyo Android app -- for me, anyway -- is the ability to change the volume from another room. I've got kids. Two of 'em. The eldest is 5, and she can rock the Logitech Harmony One remote just fine to get her Dora on. But she's also going deaf, I'm convinced, because the TV will get louder and louder as she watches. Thanks to the Onkyo app, there's no more getting up from what I'm doing. No more arguing. I just turn the damn thing down, and no one's the wiser. (I can do the same thing with the Google TV Remote app, by the way.)

So that's what I'm rocking in the living room now, all connected like. (And it sounds good, too.) Onkyo says the app's compatible with all network AV receivers released since 2010, as well as the TX-8050 Network Stereo Receiver and the T-4070 Network Stereo Tuner. You may need to do a firmware update (mine took about 5 minutes) to get things going.

Deep Trip [Android Kids App]

I don't have kids myself, but when I came across Deep Trip, well, it's fairly obvious which market's being targeted. It's a pleasant, cheerful game with a simple learning curve and cartoony graphics. That being said, if you find yourself spending time with it, too, don't be ashamed. It really is quite fun.

Deep Trip is designed in the tradition of games like Helicopter, where you hold the screen to ascend, let go to descend, and try not to crash into anything along the way. Instead of a helicopter, you're a long, orange sea snake (eel, perhaps?) who is trying to find your way home.

While the concept sounds simple, it's actually deceptively difficult, especially considering how winding underwater can be, loaded with all sorts of pointy rocks and wrecked ships and whatnot. To combat this, Deep Trip places powerups throughout the level that afford you some protection on your journey.

If you collect one powerup, your little snaky eel gets a helmet that's good for one crash into an obstacle. However, if you collect two powerups (collect a second powerup while still wearing your helmet), you're granted near-invulnerability for a time, madly careening about, smashing through anything that gets in your way without consequence.

Deep Trip is also Papaya-enabled, which is a social gaming service that looks suspiciously similar to OpenFeint. On Papaya you can see your best attempts, compare your results to other people playing Deep Trip, add friends, check out more games that are using Papaya, and chat with friends you've made. It looks like a pretty comprehensive social hub, despite it being kind of barren, friends-wise.

If you're looking for a game to kill some time or quiet your little one, Deep Trip looks like it'll fit the bill. It doesn't even cost a penny, so it's at least worth checking out.

Google Play Store Version 3.4.7 fixes link on Moto phones

The Google Play Store has been updated to Version 3.4.7. We repeat: The Google Play Store has been updated to Verison 3.4.7. You folks on Motorola phones can now hit that secondary store link in your app drawer without fear of failure.

Jelly Defense [Android Game Review]

I'm always curious about how tower defense games try to differentiate themselves in what can sometimes become a saturated environment. With heavy hitters like Robo Defense, Fieldrunners HD, and GRave Defense HD dominating headlines (and play time), sometimes the best way to make yourself noticed is by being a little bit absurd (well, and having an incredibly well-designed game, too).

Jelly Defense takes everything you've come to know and love about tower defense games, dresses it up in cutesy, goofy graphics, and delivers an experience of such high caliber that when someone asks you about the best tower defense games, this is one you name without hesitation.

The story is simple: Evil alien jellies are invading your planet, looking to steal your most valuable crystals, and you've got to stop them. This is all achieved by laying down towers at various points, pumping your enemies full of jelly-lead, and going on your merry way.

Mechanically, you're looking at the same old, same old you see on every tower defense game. Destroy enemies, get currency, and use said currency to buy more towers with which to defend your booty. This isn't a bad thing (at all), because it's one less new skill you need to learn to get on with playing.

The only thing that really stuck out to me was how you have to touch the coins that are dropped from former enemies; if you take too long, they'll eventually flash a few times and disappear, leaving your defenses vastly underfunded.

Where Jelly Defense really shines, though, is its visual presentation. Everything on screen is colorful, very upbeat, and quite unique for the tower defense genre. Enemy jellies sort of waddle or sashay over towards your crystals, and your towers dispose of them, in turn. The different kind of towers you have all look great, and their attacks are as varied as their appearance.

Infinite Dreams (the developers behind Jelly Defense) went to great lengths to pay attention to detail, and boy, does it pay off. For example, in the early levels you'll encounter jellies of two colors: red and blue. Towers you place down are similarly colored, and they can only attack jellies of their color.

All of your towers have eyeballs, too, and if enemies are present that they can't attack, they'll close their eyes and go to sleep. It's a small thing, but it really helps hammer home not only a concept of the gameplay, but how much thought went into the creation of such a masterpiece.

Really, there's not much more I can say about Jelly Defense without screaming "Buy this game!" It runs smoothly, looks gorgeous, and offers lots and lots of opportunity for fun. It's a beautiful deviation from the stereotypically violent and dark themes normally associated with games in this genre, and that's something worth applauding.

Jelly Defense is $2.99 in the Google Play Store. We've got download links after the break.

Slice for Android - Organizes your orders, tracks your stuff

I've long since raved about services like Tripit, which aggregate and organize your travel itineraries into a single application. Slice has been doing that for shopping for some time now, and today it announced it's coming to Android. We've been using Slice for a few days now, and it's quickly found a home in our must-have applications.

The premise is simple: You give Slice access to your e-mail account, and it keeps an eye on things, looking out of receipts, order confirmations and shipping announcements. If it spots one, it gets sucked into the Slice app for easy digestion. You've got quick access to current and previous orders, tracking codes, histories and maps.

Oh, and it'll show you your total number of orders imported, as well as how much you've spent. And you'll likely feel a little guilty and wonder where all that money went. Just saying. (Our test sucked in orders all the way back from 2008 – these things add up after a while.)

Slice's layout is excellent. The main menu takes you to open orders, shipped orders, delivered orders and full history. It's a little redundant because once you choose one of those sections, you can flip left or right to the others. But it still looks great. (Update: Slice apparently decided to change its main home screen between the time we got our advance look and launch. The home screen at right is what you should see on your phone.)

Order tracking is nicely done – you get easy access to the tracking number and service phone number, as well as the history of your package's travels. You get a Google Map, too, showing the shipping origin and destination cities, and points in between, but that's really not all that useful for any sort of real-time tracking.

The long and the short of it is that Slice is an excellent way to keep track of your online purchases and keep up with orders that are on the way. It's also got the ability to squelch iTunes and Netflix purchases, which you'll likely have a bunch of, so things stay nice and tidy.

We've got a slew of screen shots and some hands-on video -- and the download link, of course -- after the break.

Citibank unveils banking app for Kindle Fire

Citibank just announced a Kindle Fire edition of its mobile banking app, which it says has "every component, graphic, touch action, button and slider customized for the device." Along with that, Citi says, come:

Plan cash outflows with the help of a unique interactive chart of past and future payments and transfers

Late-night poll: What do you think of the 'Google Play' portal name?

We've had a couple of days to settle in (and debate) the new Google Play branding that covers the old Android Market, Google Book, Google Music, and Google Movies content stores. We've also been enjoying the sales in effect on apps and digital media (get Flick Golf Extreme from Google Play for a quarter before it's too late!) and filling our devices with content. But the name is a bit of a change.

We get it -- Google wanted to provide a unified name and look across all their digital content stores for Android, and a big re-branding sure got everyone's attention. But like all things when they change, there are plenty of skeptics. I'll admit saying download from Google Play seems a bit odd, but I'll get used to it soon enough. Of course what's done is done, but we're still allowed to say what we think of it, and that's what we're about to do. Sound off in the poll and comments and tell us what you think of the new Google Play moniker.

Angry Birds Seasons gets 'Cherry Blossom' update

Rovio has revamped Angry Birds Seasons with an early sprint update, featuring a cherry blossom theme. You'll now have 15 new levels to play through, and three new bonus levels. We're used to seasonal updates from Rovio, and as usual, this one is already been well received by the missus, and she says "it's great, go update it"! Who am I to argue? Market, erm, Google Play download links are after the break, or you can get the latest from the Amazon Appstore.

Chrome for Android updated with bugfixes

Get thee to thy nearest Android Market Android apps section in Google Play, as there's an update to the Chrome for Android browser. What's new, you ask? Bugfixes, says Google, including a bigun' that was keeping Chrome from starting up on some versions of Ice Cream Sandwich. (That's kind of a big deal because Chrome for Android only works on Ice Cream Sandwich.

The Chicken Bandit [Android game review]

With hundreds of thousands of apps in the Android Market Google Play, it can be hard to find the ones you need to try. That's where we come in, and I just found one that screams to be installed. It's called The Chicken Bandit, and the premise is simple -- you're a cowboy, who rides a giant chicken, and robs trains protected by robots. (Go on, pinch yourself, you're awake).

Gameplay is easy enough. You tilt your phone or tablet to move forwards and backwards, swipe across the screen to lasso bags of money and safes, and tap to shoot out windows, doors, and robotic deputies. All while riding a giant chicken. It's smooth, the graphics are fluid and drawn in a cool retro-cowboy style, and the action is fast-paced enough to keep you interested. There's also mini-games like a quick draw against a robot, a general store to buy upgrades and new gear, and a level boss or two. Chickens, cowboys, and robots have never been so much fun.

I've found myself playing games on my Android phones and tablets a lot more than I ever imagined myself doing. Fun, and silly, games like The Chicken Bandit are a big part of the reason why. This one's perfect for wasting a bit of time while at the DMV or during your lunch break, and it saves progress so you can just pick up and continue at your leisure. There's a lot to be said for deep, console-style games, but games that you can just tap and play a few minutes at a time will always have a place. The Chicken Bandit is that game for me.

The game is built to work with Android 2.1 or higher, so it's going to run on most every device out there. There's a free demo version (we've got links after the break) as well as the full version for $2.99. Both have giant chickens. Hit the jump to see a quick demo through the tutorial.

Readability for Android hits Monday - we've got your preview today!

Welcome to Readability for Android. So-called "read-it-later" apps have become a godsend for when you're short on time and even shorter on bandwidth. A couple clicks and webpages are sent from your desktop browser to an app your phone, stripping off the fat and leaving pure lean meat on the bone.

Readability is the latest in this line of applications. Having just been released for iOS, it'll be release for Android on Monday, March 12. We got to take Readability for a quick spin today. And if this sort of app service is indispensable for you, we're glad to report that Readability performs wonderfully.

If you're new to this space, the idea's simple. You sign up with Readability (I did it right from my phone -- just took a few seconds) and then install a plugin in your browser. (They've got plug-ins for all the major browsers.) When you get to a webpage you want to send to your phone, you click the Readability. You then have the option to "read now," "read later" or "send to Kindle."

Once a webpage hits the Readability on your phone or tablet -- it looks just fine on a 10-incher like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 -- everything's stripped out except for the text, images and links. No muss, no fuss, no messy load times. It's got a web view built in, too, so if you want to see something in its original format, it's just a click away.

We've got a full review on the way. For now, check out some preview screenies after the break.

Google Music Manager also updated with Google Play branding

Not a huge update, we suppose, but the Google Play branding has made its way into a new version of what previous was Google Music Manager. Guess now it's Google Play Music Manager? Snag the latest version at the link below.

Google Currents so far has survived the Google Play rebranding. (Play Currents?) So now's as good a time as any to check in and see how it's doing. And at the time of this writing, Android Central has an astounding 198,000 subscribers.